Advice anyone?

Hello.

I'm trying to talk myself out of the film student thing; only doing it at a county college level at present.  I am dumb enough to be thinking of blowing some money I have saved on equipment, and i was hoping for some suggestions. Four somewhat rambly questions.

have become quite taken with the Canon GL2, but can't afford one. Knowing I'll have to go consumer grade, can anybody recommend under $500 camera equipment? In theory this would be for my own tiny-ass "indy" (read: homemade bullshit) projects, so I'd need more than just point & shoot birthday party camcorder here; decent picture and sound and adjustability of aperture and shutters are key. Any sound equipment recommendations? Capture decks/cards?

I don't love mini-DV tape but am used to it; is there a big quality comedown shooting onto mini-discs or memory cards?

If I have to resort to blue screen, what material in what hue works best?

I'm probably going to "acquire" in some fashion Adobe Premeire, which I have worked with and think is ok. I can't afford a mac so Final Cut pro is ruled out;is there editing software I don't know about, but should consider?

Thanks for any help.   I look forward to seeing what some of you guys have been or are up to.

Re:Advice anyone?

ThomasJeffersonGeronimo:

Hello.

I'm trying to talk myself out of the film student thing; only doing it at a county college level at present.  I am dumb enough to be thinking of blowing some money I have saved on equipment, and i was hoping for some suggestions. Four somewhat rambly questions.

have become quite taken with the Canon GL2, but can't afford one. Knowing I'll have to go consumer grade, can anybody recommend under $500 camera equipment? In theory this would be for my own tiny-ass "indy" (read: homemade bullshit) projects, so I'd need more than just point & shoot birthday party camcorder here; decent picture and sound and adjustability of aperture and shutters are key. Any sound equipment recommendations? Capture decks/cards?

I don't love mini-DV tape but am used to it; is there a big quality comedown shooting onto mini-discs or memory cards?

If I have to resort to blue screen, what material in what hue works best?

I'm probably going to "acquire" in some fashion Adobe Premeire, which I have worked with and think is ok. I can't afford a mac so Final Cut pro is ruled out;is there editing software I don't know about, but should consider?

Thanks for any help.   I look forward to seeing what some of you guys have been or are up to.

Hello,

I would start with Craigs list. Sometimes it blows my mind to see the awesome deals out there. Try to find a 3 CCD with standard 1/3-inch bayonet mount so you can use the big lenses.

 I have found you can have a crap camera but when you drop a Pro lens on it your footage looks like a million bucks.

 As far as sound, get yourself a good used boom and a decent used mike. Capture your sound directly to the tape. As long as you really listen and check your levels (often) that works fine.

 The mini DV tapes are ok if you use the pro grade and use Cine Form when you capture.

 Dont use blue screen go green, and if you have a Hancocks Fabrics local the have a great green that is just the right color. Just be sure when you shoot you pull it tight., No wrinkes, and light it right. No shadows!

As far as editing I think I am going to switch to Sony Vegas. I have had nothing but trouble with Premiere. Adobe it fine for small projects but when ever you are doing a feature there is a horrible memory leak that cause Premiere to crash...A LOT.  I just spent a week strait on the phone with Adobe tech support because I could not render my movie. 2 years of work that I could not even burn onto a DVD.

 I would up having to cut the movie into thirds and then into 10 min uncompressed AVIs then reassemble them just to get a sucessful render.

 That really sucked!

Anyways good luck to you and check out my flick Game Over: The Secret Life of Game Store Clerks (2008)

We have been officially turned down by some of the most prestigious festivals in the world!

 Larry

Re:Advice anyone?

Some good questions there.  I would also second not spending a ton of money on a camera.  Honestly, a camera is only as good as the person behind it, and image quality has more to do with the lens than anything else.  I can't remember the exact model of the camera, but Panasonic made a DV cam that is widely regarded as having a similar quality to an actual film camera because of its optics. They are available fairly cheaply now too as I recall. 

Otherwise, I've never been let down by a pro-sumer level Canon product either.  Filters can help a lot too, and just make sure the manual features of the camera are fairly easy to access... some consumer models make the mistake of burying them under 10 levels of menus, which becomes frustrating to wade through for the amateur filmmaker who's frequently accessing them.  Mini-discs and memory cards are a PITA in my experience, and far more expensive to shoot with.  Honestly, at an amateur level, the older Digital8 cameras are still my favorite.

As for editing, the PC equivalent (and I use "equivalent" loosely) would probably be Avid or Premiere.  I'd lean towards Premeire personally, but Avid has been a longtime standard.

Sound equipment... hmmm.  Honestly, I've had pretty good results with some pretty low-end and improvised gear.  I've been really impressed with how well most modern cameras pick up sound off the camera mic, even.  I had to film a project in which I was supposed to use a wireless to capture a speaker, but was unable to get the wireless in time for the shoot, shot using the camera mic and my film prof didn't even notice.  I just rigged up some wind baffles with a little foam and tape, and the outstanding directional ability of the mic did the rest. 

That being said, I'd probably see about getting some decent directional mics, maybe even wireless as they are pretty versatile, easy to work with and can be used on a long stick like a boom in a pinch.  Definiately have at least one wired backup, and take great care in how you store and wind the cables.  Mics are very sensitive instruments and broken shielding on a cable is a death sentence.

ThomasJeffersonGeronimo:

Hello.

I'm trying to talk myself out of the film student thing; only doing it at a county college level at present.  I am dumb enough to be thinking of blowing some money I have saved on equipment, and i was hoping for some suggestions. Four somewhat rambly questions.

have become quite taken with the Canon GL2, but can't afford one. Knowing I'll have to go consumer grade, can anybody recommend under $500 camera equipment? In theory this would be for my own tiny-ass "indy" (read: homemade bullshit) projects, so I'd need more than just point & shoot birthday party camcorder here; decent picture and sound and adjustability of aperture and shutters are key. Any sound equipment recommendations? Capture decks/cards?

I don't love mini-DV tape but am used to it; is there a big quality comedown shooting onto mini-discs or memory cards?

If I have to resort to blue screen, what material in what hue works best?

I'm probably going to "acquire" in some fashion Adobe Premeire, which I have worked with and think is ok. I can't afford a mac so Final Cut pro is ruled out;is there editing software I don't know about, but should consider?

Thanks for any help.   I look forward to seeing what some of you guys have been or are up to.

Re:Advice anyone?

That Premeire rendering issue sounds nightmarish.  Is Avid still relevant?  I hadn't heard much about it in awhile, but may now consider it.

  Is there consumer grade equipment you can do physical lens changes on?  That sounds expensive, and as I understand digital it doesn't sound (at least at a consumer level) capable of capturing particularly big shots.  Are there options besides the 4:3 and 16:9 settings? I tried for a week between Premiere and a GL2 to figure out a way to just cheat myself to something resembling a "scope" ratio & couldn't do it.  I tried some pretty dumb stuff too. 

The time I spent goofing around in Best Buy with what's in my price range was actually pretty discouraging.  I am stalking CraigsList and eBay, but will likely end up walking back into BestBuy andmaking do...

Re:Advice anyone?

One of my all-time favorite handhelds you can pick up dirt cheap now is the Sony Digital8 line of cameras.  I generally hate Sony products, but these were some nice cameras.  They had USB connectivity, take standard 8 tapes (cheap, cheap, cheap) and Zeiss optics.  They are a bit larger than a DV cam, but the larger body also had a larger lens for better shooting in low light and less distortion than the tiny-lensed DV cams.  Doesn't have swappable lenses, but you may get by with some nice filters and its easy to access manual functions.  Might be something to get started with now before you go big.

As far as Avid goes, it isn't quite what it used to be in terms of industry standards, but its still out there and used by a lot of media outlets, primarily news programs, etc.  It'll do most of what any other editing suite will, its just a bit more archaic in function and layout.

ThomasJeffersonGeronimo:

That Premeire rendering issue sounds nightmarish.  Is Avid still relevant?  I hadn't heard much about it in awhile, but may now consider it.

  Is there consumer grade equipment you can do physical lens changes on?  That sounds expensive, and as I understand digital it doesn't sound (at least at a consumer level) capable of capturing particularly big shots.  Are there options besides the 4:3 and 16:9 settings? I tried for a week between Premiere and a GL2 to figure out a way to just cheat myself to something resembling a "scope" ratio & couldn't do it.  I tried some pretty dumb stuff too. 

The time I spent goofing around in Best Buy with what's in my price range was actually pretty discouraging.  I am stalking CraigsList and eBay, but will likely end up walking back into BestBuy andmaking do...